Guides & Articles

6 min read MD5 vs SHA-256: When to Use Which MD5 is fast and short; SHA-256 is slower and collision-resistant. Here is a plain-English look at where each one still belongs. Read the guide → 5 min read What Is Base64, and When Do You Actually Need It? Base64 is not encryption and it does not make data smaller. Here is what it really does and the handful of times you need it. Read the guide → 7 min read Hashing vs Encryption vs Encoding: The Difference Three words that get mixed up constantly. They solve different problems, and using the wrong one is how data gets leaked. Read the guide → 7 min read JWT Explained: Structure, Claims, and How to Read One A JSON Web Token is three Base64 parts joined by dots. Here is what each part holds and why a JWT is signed, not secret. Read the guide → 7 min read How to Compress Images for the Web Without Losing Quality Lossless vs lossy, what actually shrinks a file, and a practical order of operations for fast pages that still look sharp. Read the guide → 7 min read PNG vs JPG vs WebP vs AVIF: Which Image Format to Use Photos, logos, screenshots and transparency each have a best format. A plain comparison so you stop guessing. Read the guide → 6 min read Generating Secure Passwords: Entropy, Length and Myths Length beats complexity, and randomness beats both. What makes a password strong, measured honestly with entropy. Read the guide → 6 min read JSON vs TOON: What the Trade-offs Actually Are TOON trims JSON's repetition to save tokens. Where that helps, where it hurts, and when plain JSON is still the right call. Read the guide → 6 min read UUIDs vs Random Strings vs Secrets: Picking an ID Not every identifier needs the same thing. When to use a UUID, a random string, or a real secret, and why mixing them up bites. Read the guide → 7 min read Regex Basics Every Developer Should Know The handful of regex pieces that cover most real tasks, explained with examples you can paste straight into a tester. Read the guide → 6 min read What a QR Code Actually Encodes (and Error Correction) A QR code is just data plus redundancy. What it stores, why it still scans when damaged, and which error level to pick. Read the guide → 5 min read Bionic Reading: What It Is and Who It Helps Bolding the start of each word is meant to guide the eye. What the technique is, the honest state of the evidence, and how to try it. Read the guide → 6 min read Slugify, Case-convert and Clean Text for the Web Stray whitespace, wrong case and messy slugs cause real bugs. A practical routine for turning raw text into clean web-ready text. Read the guide → 6 min read Unix Timestamps and Timezones Without the Headaches A Unix timestamp is just seconds since 1970, in UTC. Get that and most timezone bugs disappear. Here is the mental model. Read the guide → 5 min read Lorem Ipsum: Why Placeholder Text Still Matters Fake Latin that keeps real words from distracting from a design. Where it came from, why it works, and when not to use it. Read the guide →